Morning Agenda: Follow the Leader, How Airgas Doubled Its Price, and ‘Better Than Goldman’

How much influence does your boss have over how you vote? You’d probably like to think you’re fairly independent, but that may not be the case.

A new study shows that chief executives of companies have an unsettling amount of power over their employees, and it is not just down to colleagues having similar values.

The study showed that when a chief executive contributed to different political candidates from the ones supported by the preceding chief executive, employees tended to follow their leader and redirect their own donations.

The influence of a boss’s political leanings should not be underestimated and, indeed, should be scrutinized, Andrew Ross Sorkin writes. But for this election cycle at least, it seems that many chief executives are avoiding public endorsements, possibly because they do not want to face reprisals against their business or industry down the line.

How Airgas Doubled Its Sale Price

It’s a case study for business schools and an example for Wall Street law firms.

Airgas could have been sold off for a fraction of the initial offer price, just as Yahoo was. And, at the time, the company’s founder, Peter McCausland, was accused of being too entrenched.

This ship has steadied somewhat since then, but BTG has nevertheless returned closer to its mission in 2012, when it was guided by the distinctly less aggressive motto — “Latin America’s business and investment hub.”

It still will not be easy for the bank to turn a profit in its newly-slimmer form. But for now, many are just giving it credit for surviving.

Coming Up

• John Williams, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, will discuss the economic outlook and what it means for monetary policy at the Hayek Group’s monthly dinner in Reno, Nev.